The Twin Bargain. Lisa Carter
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She gave him an inscrutable look. “I haven’t forgotten.”
Guilt pricked his conscience. He should have kept in touch. But he’d been determined to put his own bad memories behind him when he joined the Corps. Amber had been unintentionally jettisoned, too. Collateral damage.
Yet if there was anything from his broken childhood he would’ve wanted to carry with him, it would have been those wonderful times with the Flemings. They’d been good to him. Embracing him like one of their own.
When he’d been seven, his dad had abandoned him and his mom, and they’d lived with his grandparents. Later when his mom moved away into a new life, Grandma had offered to let him stay with her so he could finish high school with his friends. It was a pattern with his grandmother. Maybe that was why she was trying so hard to help Amber finish her schooling.
“Grandma’s still at the hospital. I can’t leave today, anyway. A few more days in Truelove won’t matter.”
The corners of Amber’s lovely mouth pulled downward. “I guess it won’t.”
He stepped aside. “Grandma will relish having another chance to give me what for.”
Slinging a backpack over her shoulder, Amber eased out of the car. “Your grandmother adores you. That’s why she’s so tough on you.”
He took the backpack. “So we’re good? You and me?”
Their gazes locked. Something tightened in his chest when she didn’t answer right away. Finally—
Her lashes lowered, sweeping her cheeks. “We’re good, Ethan.”
But clicking the fob to lock the car, she gave him a nice view of her back.
To say that having fallen asleep in her car was an embarrassment would have been an understatement. That Ethan had been the one to find her was a complete humiliation.
And to have to depend on him—on any man—was merely the latest tier on a cake of mortification she’d been building since Tony proved her father right about everything.
In two months, she would earn her nursing license. Over the last year and a half, she’d consoled herself with the thought of getting a good-paying job. Showing her father how wrong he’d been. Standing on her own two feet.
But everything had been contingent on finishing nursing school. After yesterday, it was a goal that had dissipated as quickly as morning mist over the mountains.
Amber shot a surreptitious look at Ethan typing into his cell. Her girls depended on her to make a better life for them. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let them down. No matter what it took. No matter if, in the process, she half killed herself.
She shuddered, recalling other late nights over the winter where she’d almost fallen asleep at the wheel. Driving the treacherous mountain roads, oftentimes through whiteout conditions. Several times she’d come close to losing control of the car. And then what would’ve become of her children?
Putting away his phone, Ethan stowed her backpack in a compartment on the motorcycle. “I texted Grandma. Explained what happened. Told her we’re on our way to Truelove.”
Amber nodded.
“I’m glad you have a jacket.” He climbed on the bike. “Doesn’t feel like spring yet.”
Strapping on the extra helmet, she took the seat behind him. “I’m ready.”
“Hold on,” he yelled above the roar of the engine.
Biting her lip, she locked her arms around his waist. And they were off.
Last fall, after Callie and Jake got married, Miss ErmaJean had offered—insisted—on taking the girls to school each morning while Amber reported for the early-morning shift at the diner. ErmaJean had also cared for Lucy and Stella the two evenings a week Amber attended class. And each weekend during Amber’s clinicals.
But Miss ErmaJean was an old woman. Lucy and Stella weren’t her responsibility. If anything ever happened to Amber, her brother, Matt, would be their guardian. Yet he was often unreachable for weeks at a time on a classified mission. As for her father?
The glossy, evergreen leaves of rhododendron flashed by on either side of the mountain road. Wind whipped her hair across her eyes. The early-morning chill stung her cheeks.
Her father had never met the twins.
She pressed her face into Ethan’s buttery soft, brown leather jacket.
You make your bed hard, you can lie in it. That’s what her father had said when she told him she was going to marry Tony. It had been the biggest mistake of her life. And lying in that hard bed was what she’d been doing ever since.
At the crossroads on the outskirts of Truelove, Ethan slowed. The decibel level of the motor lessened measurably. “Where do you live?”
When he saw where she was living, it would be the final indignity.
Following her directions, he turned onto a secondary road. Midway up the mountain at the third gravel driveway, he pulled in beside Miss GeorgeAnne’s sturdy pickup truck and cut the engine.
He did a quick scan of her dilapidated trailer.
She clenched her teeth. “This is all I can afford.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Letting go of him, she stepped onto the ground. “You didn’t have to say anything.”
To her dismay, he hopped off, too. Retrieving her pack, he followed her to the porch steps.
She reached for her backpack. “You don’t have to—”
The railing wobbled under his hand. He looked at her again. And refused to surrender the pack.
She chewed her lip, wishing the yard would swallow her. But no chance of that. She headed up the steps to the door. The porch landing shook under his weight, and he muttered something under his breath.
GeorgeAnne flung open the door. “I was so worried. I didn’t know what else to do but get ErmaJean to call Ethan. I figured you wouldn’t want me to call your—”
“It’s okay, Miss GeorgeAnne. I’m so, so sorry you had to spend the night here with the girls.”
GeorgeAnne’s gaze flicked to Ethan. “Staying with Lucy and Stella is no trouble.”
Ducking his head, he stepped inside the low-ceilinged living room.
Amber did a slow three-sixty on the worn carpet. “Where are the girls?”
GeorgeAnne patted her shoulder. “Haven’t stirred since I put them to bed last night. They’ll be awake soon and find their mommy waiting to wish them a good day at school.”
Amber pinched her lips together. “The manager at the Jar isn’t the most understanding of men. He’s probably sacked me.”
GeorgeAnne pushed her wire-frame glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. “The girls and I put an emergency plan in motion until you can get to the diner.”
Ethan leaned the long length of himself against a kitchen cabinet. “You and the twins put a plan in motion?”
Amber prayed the cabinet didn’t give way under him. Most things in the trailer were held together with little more than duct tape and prayer. “Miss GeorgeAnne means her girls.”
His eyes widened. “The matchmakers?”
GeorgeAnne looked down her long nose at him. “We had a conference call this morning about Amber’s situation.”
“A conference call.” He eyed the older lady. “Seriously?”
“Your